One of the first rules of time travel is that the timeline is always in flux, and the slightest derivation can radically alter entire realities. So when Disney ditched its plans to make Kang the Conquerer the big bad of its Multiverse Saga, the state of the MCU had to change. The biggest change, of course, is the prioritizing of Doctor Doom as the new defining threat, with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty becoming Avengers: Doomsday. But to some, an even more important change involved the highly anticipated team of adolescents, the Young Avengers.
In a recent AMA on Reddit, Kang Dynasty co-writer Michael Waldron explained how he and Jeff Loveness originally planned to debut the Young Avengers in that crossover film. “Jeff Loveness and I spent an afternoon pitching on the Young Avengers defeating a version of Kang and being so stoked about it,” he wrote on the site.
To comic book fans, that makes perfect sense. The Young Avengers made their debut in 2005’s Young Avengers #1, written by Allan Heinberg and penciled by Jim Cheung. In the wake of the actual Avengers disbanding, a group are assembled by a mysterious figure called Iron Lad. The group consists of heroes with monikers and powers similar to those of the main team, including Hulkling, Asgardian, and Patriot. Eventually, we learn that they have been brought together to stem off an invasion of Kang the Conquerer, who plans to take advantage of the absence of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Moreover, we learn that Iron Lad is none other than Kang himself, a younger version who loathes his older self’s turn toward evil.
Although it came out seven years later, the Young Avengers origin dovetails nicely with the comic book story The Kang Dynasty, written by Kurt Busiek. In that story, Kang gathers forces across time to finally succeed in conquering the world, convincing global leaders that only he can stem an oncoming threat. The Avengers are disbanded, with many imprisoned and others forming a resistance movement.
